Digital Bob Archive

For miners heading north from Juneau to the Yukon country in the early 1880s, the toughest part of the journey could be getting to what was known as the Yukon Portage at the head of Lynn Canal. February through April was their preferred time for getting over the pass to the headwaters of the Yukon, but at that season frigid temperatures and howling northerly winds were often encountered on Lynn Canal. No steamboats made that run and they had to resort to small sailboats, rowboats or, very frequently, to dugout canoes.

The first man to offer a regular transportation service from Juneau to the head of Taiya Inlet was Irish-born John J. Healy, a former Indian fighter, whiskey trader, newspaper publisher and county sheriff from Montana. He arrived in Juneau sometime in 1885, sized up the opportunities, and with a partner named Edgar Wilson opened a trading post at what became known as Healy's Landing and then as Dyea.

It soon became apparent to Healy that he needed his own transportation, and about that time a nine-ton sloop, the Charlie, became available. The vessel,
built at Port Townsend in 1880, had recently been acquired by an Indian named Johnson, perhaps the Chief Johnson whose big house on the hillside south of town was long a Juneau landmark. But the Customs Service would not let Johnson keep the boat, on the grounds that he was not a citizen because he had not severed tribal relationships. This ignored the fact that the Natives of this area regularly navigated canoes that were considerably larger than the Charlie, but that was the way it was and Healy became the owner and thereafter was Captain Healy.

Despite his lack of previous experience, Captain Healy did well enough with the Charlie, carrying miners and their outfits to the head of Lynn Canal and also out to Lituya Bay, but he felt he needed something with steam power. Late in 1886 the newly built steamboat Yukon arrived in Juneau from Seattle and was seized by the Customs officers for some infringement of the laws. And again Captain Healy got a bargain boat. The Yukon was about the same length as the Charlie but with greater tonnage, and with steam power.

When Juneau's first newspaper began publishing, in January, 1887, Healy advertised in it that the Yukon would leave for Chilkoot 24 hours after the arrival of each mail steamer from the south and would carry up to 12 passengers. But even with steam power it was not always an easy trip at that time of year. In mid-February the Yukon arrived back in Juneau after having taken 12 days for the trip. Captain Healy reported that on the northbound trip they frequently had to stop to chop ice and that Taiya Inlet was frozen for three miles from its head and that the miners had to haul their outfits along the shore on sleds.
Captain Healy himself went off to the Yukon after a few years but his little steamboat remained here as a towboat and occasional ferry for another dozen years.